Routine archaeological research at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, led by Salima Ikram ‘86, Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo (AUC), resulted in the discovery of leather fragments of a chariot from ancient Egypt.

Salima Ikram and Andre Veldmeijer, head of the Egyptology section at the Netherlands Flemish Institute in Cairo, retrieve extraordinary leather fragments of an ancient chariot from abandoned casings at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

“The discovery of such leather fragments is extremely rare and unusual. Only a handful of complete chariots are known from ancient Egypt, and of these, only one heavily restored in Florence, and that of Yuya and Tjuiu in the Egyptian Museum, have any significant amount of leather. Even then, they are largely unembellished and not as well-preserved as the fragments we found… Everything we saw about the chariot leather was new. It presented a revelation on how the chariot was put together, the technologies and materials used.”